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Daily Mail
June 20, 2014
An African warlord guilty of crimes against humanity is suing Britain for denying him his right to a family life.
Charles Taylor, who allegedly ate the hearts of his enemies, is serving 50 years in a Durham jail.
The UK agreed to imprison him after he was convicted at the Hague of a horrifying campaign of rape, murder and terrorism that cost tens of thousands of lives in Sierra Leone.
But yesterday the 66-year-old lodged legal papers claiming his detention in Britain denies his human rights.
He says his wife and 15 children – some of them criminals too – should not have to travel from Africa to visit him. Taylor also claims he fears being attacked in Frankland jail.
The former Liberian president fuelled a civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone to seize its ‘blood diamonds’, some of which he gave to Naomi Campbell when he met the supermodel at a dinner in honour of Nelson Mandela in 1997.
The British Government will be forced to spend tens of thousands of pounds contesting the case and flying Taylor to the Netherlands for his appeal.
Whitehall officials described his claim as the ‘ultimate perversion of the concept of human rights’. One said: ‘This is simply disgusting. He is a war criminal. He doesn’t get to choose where he serves his sentence. As for his right to a family life – what a sick joke.’
Tory MP Dominic Raab said: ‘It shows the corruption of human rights that such a brutal warlord convicted of crimes against humanity, including terrorism, rape and conscripting child soldiers, thinks he can claim jail violates his right to family life.
‘If he’s successful, it would turn British human rights laws into a laughing stock around the world.’
Taylor’s case will be heard by Judge Philip Waki at the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, which has £1million funding from the Foreign Office.
The former despot has already appointed two lawyers in England, including a QC. The fees are likely to be picked up by the court.
The case is the latest appalling example of criminals claiming they have a right to a family life, which is enshrined in law by a series of treaties, conventions and other international obligations. Convicts normally cite these rules to stay in Britain whereas Taylor wants to be transferred to Rwanda.
His wife, Victoria Addison Taylor, claimed his incarceration among ‘common British prisoners’ was humiliating. She said: ‘They took him to this prison where high [risk] criminals, terrorists and other common British criminals are kept and he is being classified as a high-risk prisoner.
‘He is going through humiliation and you cannot treat a former head of state that way.’
Taylor was convicted in April 2012 of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He aided murderous rebels in Sierra Leone’s 11-year civil war that ended in 2002 and cost around 250,000 lives.
Taylor’s trial was held at the Hague in case it sparked renewed unrest in West Africa. In order to help bring him to justice, the Blair government agreed that he would serve any term of imprisonment in the UK – with the taxpayer picking up the bill.
Since the end of 2013, he has been imprisoned in HMP Frankland at a cost of around £50,000 a year,
But, despite his crimes, he claims to have a human right to be near his family, who remain in Africa. In a letter sent to the Dutch court he says it would be easier – and less expensive – for his family to visit him in Africa.
